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18 



, 1 ddresses at the Several Receptions in 
onor of the Royal Italian War Com- 
mission in New York, June2 1-23, 1 91 7 



By 
Nicholas Murray Butler 

Chairman of the Mayor's Committee on Reception 



New York 
1917 



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ADDITIONAL COPIES MAY BE HAD ON APPLICATION TO 

DIVISION OF INTERCOURSE AND EDUCATION 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

407 WEST II7TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY 



By Tr»xi«f*r 

JUN 8 1919 



UNIVERSITY PRINTING OFFICE 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



I 

Address delivered at the official reception of the Royal 
Italian War Commission at the City Hall, New 
York, June 21, 1917 

Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, and Gen- 
tlemen: This is an hour and this is an experience 
which make history for New York and for the na- 
tion. You have heard from the lips of His Honor the 
Mayor of the welcome which the City tenders to 
this company of men of affairs and men of state 
who come bearing high commission from the gov- 
ernment and the people of Italy. You have seen 
in the crowded streets through which you have 
passed, you have heard from the voices of the school- 
children and their elders, the acclaim which is in every 
American heart as you put foot in our great cosmo- 
politan capital. The Mayor has said that this is a 
peculiar city. New York is a great city; too great for 
envy. New York is a powerful city; too powerful for 
boasting. New York is a generous city; too generous 
to feel the need to extol the art of giving. New York 
is a patriotic city ; too patriotic to be satisfied with the 
service of the lips. For nearly three years the pop- 
ulation of this great metropolis has watched with 
tense expectancy the movement of opinion beyond 
the sea, and when the time came that Italy saw its 
duty and prepared to do it, the finger of fate pointed 
to a quick coming of the day when the experience 
of the United States would be the same. 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

This is no ordinary war. This is no war prose- 
cuted by alhed peoples and by allied armies with 
hymns of hate upon their lips. This is no war 
of conquest. This is no war of destruction. This 
is a war of a kind which Italy knows so well — 
a war to unify and to free men. May one suppose 
that the great peace-loving, industrious popula- 
tion of the United States could be turned from their 
occupations to take up arms at this day in the history 
of the world on any but an issue which stirs men's 
souls, which appeals to men's consciences, and which 
holds men's intelligences in the tight grip of everlast- 
ing principle? Nothing less could have brought 
Italy, nothing less could have brought the United 
States, into this contest which is to be prosecuted, 
be the day soon or far, until the aims for which it has 
been undertaken are secure beyond human per- 
adventure. The world has no intention of repeating 
this experience. It proposes by the aid of Italian 
arms, by the aid of Italian patriotism, by the aid of 
Italian ideals, and by the aid of Italian devotion, to 
write a page in the record book of the world's his- 
tory which can never be erased or turned back. 

You are welcomed with heartiness and welcomed 
with acclaim by this great population. The nearly 
eight hundred thousand among us who revere the 
name, the tongue, the traditions of Italy and in 
whose veins runs Italian blood, are of the very 
stock and stuff of our best citizenship. They are 
gathered here in great and representative number. 
They have lined the streets through which we 
have come, and they will line the streets through 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

which we are yet to go. They represent a bond — 
a bond which is human and therefore immortal 
— ^between the sun-kissed land from which they came 
and this bounteous land across the sea which they have 
made their home. It is not that they love Italy less, 
but that they have found here a new opportunity to go 
forward in those paths which most warmly appeal to 
them; and this they can do with no breach of tra- 
dition, no break of affections, no sundering of ancient 
and familiar and beloved ties. That is why this 
great element of our metropolitan population is so 
sternly and so strongly American, and why it is at the 
same time so fond of the name and the fame of Italy. 
That is why it represents a bond, a bridge, an invisible 
bridge, across the great ocean over which ideas and 
accomplishments come and go, pass and re-pass, as the 
great human tide flows on to make itself felt in the 
accomplishment of liberty. That is the keynote that 
we strike at the opening of these memorable days. 
These are days that we do not forget, because they 
stir our souls. These are days that we cannot forget, 
for they make us into new men. 

We greet Your Royal Highness and Your Excel- 
lencies. We greet in you not only high Commissioners 
of a sovereign and a friendly State, but leaders of a 
great people, engaged with the free peoples of the 
world in a crusade to rescue the sacred places of 
liberty from those who would destroy them. 



5] 



II 

Address delivered at the luncheon given in honor of 
the Royal Italian War Commission by the Mer- 
chants' Association of New York, at the Hotel 
Astor, June 22, 191 7 

Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, and Gen- 
tlemen : This is an exceptional gathering of a thousand 
merchants and men of affairs of New York. You 
have come in the midst of a bus}^ day to bid welcome 
to this distinguished company of representatives 
of the Government and the people of Italy, and to 
pledge once more, publicly and with heartiness, the 
fullest possible support and cooperation of our people 
in this great enterprise which we have joined to- 
gether to undertake. 

You are merchants and bankers greeting represen- 
tatives of a nation where banking was almost invented, 
and coming from contact with a commerce which looks 
back to the ports of Venice and of Genoa in the palmy 
days of the very beginnings of the overseas trade of the 
world. We meet today under these circumstan- 
ces because there is not merely a friendly co- 
operation of Governments, but because there is a 
complete understanding of peoples. Where the 
hearts of two great peoples beat in unison, a formal 
alliance between Governments is wholly unnecessary. 

We have embarked with our ally Italy, and with 
our allies France, Great Britain, and the rest, upon 
what I described just now as a great enterprise; and 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

that, gentlemen, is a joint enterprise, to be prosecuted 
jointly to a conclusion that shall not be traded away, 
bit by bit, but that shall be made the basis for a new 
world order. 

Voices come to us from one land and another, ask- 
ing the consideration of separate peace. Remember, 
gentlemen, one of the most ancient of fables; how 
easy it was to break every fagot singly and how im- 
possible to break them when bound together by a 
common strand. There is only one way in which the 
Teutonic Powers can win this war or bring it to a 
drawn battle, and that is by dividing the Allies, by 
breaking one by one, fagot by fagot, the concerted 
opposition to militarism which has now stirred every 
free and liberty-loving people in this world. 

We are approached with seductive formulas: 
'There must be no indemnities', and 'There must be 
no annexations of territory'. Perhaps not; but just 
what do those words mean? If by indemnity is 
meant the old-fashioned mediaeval system of puni- 
tive indemnity, no; we have outgrown all that. But 
if by no 'indemnity' is meant that those who have 
ravaged and ravished Belgium and France and Serbia 
and Roumania and Poland are not to restore those 
peoples to their homes, I very greatly mistake ! We 
may not even discuss that question, however indi- 
rectly, with an enemy, for it goes to the very bottom 
of this war. If a great series of public crimes has 
been committed, those public crimes must be atoned 
for in the only way that is possible. 

No payment of money can bring back the precious 
lives that were sunk on the Lusitania! No payment 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

of money can restore shattered Louvain and rav- 
ished Termonde! No payment of money can rebuild 
the Cathedral at Rheims! No payment of money 
can bring back those burned and ravished villages in 
Serbia and in Poland ! For those crimes the everlast- 
ing execration of history is the penalty. Gentlemen, 
those names will remain figures of speech for base- 
ness and cruelty a thousand years from now! But a 
payment that will do something to make good the 
private losses and damages inflicted on every hand 
is not a punitive indemnity; it is a legal fine to be 
collected by process of public law. 

And then, gentlemen, we are approached with an- 
other seductive phrase — 'There are to be no annex- 
ations'. What does that mean? If by 'annexations' 
is meant the violent transferring of territory to a, new 
sovereign against the will of its people, certainly not. 
That, too, is a mediaeval conception that we have out- 
grown. But, if by 'annexation' is meant returning a 
child to its mother, we shall insist upon it! 

Alsace and Lorraine were stolen before the sight of 
all the world and they must be given back! Italia 
Irredenta, with its great population held forcibly 
under Hapsburg rule, would not be annexed — it 
would be brought home! 

These, gentlemen, are the answers that are on our 
lips and in our hearts to those who would seduce us 
with formulas. We are simple men of affairs. We 
sign a bond only after reading its terms. We wish 
to know the meaning of these words and we shall not 
permit the honeyed sounds of rhetoric or sentiment 
to cloud our vision as to what words mean. 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

'No indemnities'? Certainly not. 'No annexa- 
tion'? Certainly not! But restoration, restitution, 
and the return home of stolen and scattered children! 

Gentlemen, all these great questions might not have 
been solved in the ordinary processes of evolution for 
a hundred years. It might have taken one generation 
after another before these hard problems of public 
law and public policy could have been raised for 
solution. They were raised when the cruel hand of 
militarism was lifted to strike an innocent neutral 
nation. Prussian militarism has made its bed; now 
let it lie in it! 



[9] 



Ill 

Address delivered at the dinner given by the Mayor 
of the City of New York in honor of the Royal 
Italian War Commission, at the Waldorf-Astoria 
Hotel, June 22, 1917. 

Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, and Gen- 
tlemen: This notable demonstration is a fitting 
climax to your welcome to the City of New York. It 
reveals with new emphasis the sincerity, the convic- 
tion and the purpose of this City and of the nation. 
There are still ringing in our ears the acclaim given 
but a few short weeks ago to the distinguished Com- 
missions from France and from Great Britain. This 
hall has seen many distinguished and representative 
gatherings, but never has it seen gatherings more dis- 
tinguished, more representative, or more significant, 
than those which gathered then and now. They in- 
clude the whole citizenship of New York, regardless 
of party, regardless of faith, regardless of social dis- 
tinction ; that whole citizenship speaks with one voice 
in its welcome to this company of eminent Italians. 

Tonight the name that is on our lips, the thought 
that is in our hearts, the history and achievements 
which we like to recall, are those of Italy. That na- 
tion binds together the ancient world and the world 
in which we live. Take it away and history in its 
continuity is destroyed. That nation is the link be- 
tween East and West. Over its plains and mountains 
and through its gates have come for two thousand 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

years a great procession of ideas and ideals to make 
the civilization which is ours, and which we at this 
moment are in arms to defend. 

Strike out Italy and there goes at one blow the 
best of the world's art; its painting, its sculpture, its 
music, its architecture, are hopelessly wrecked and 
destroyed. Strike out Italy and the world's poetry 
and letters, the world's science and practical accom- 
plishment, are broken in half. Strike out Italy and 
ancient Rome has no place in which to die, while the 
Renaissance and the modern spirit have no cradle in 
which to be born. Gentlemen, we cannot strike out 
Italy from history unless we are prepared to wreck 
the world. 

Do not forget that the Government of Italy first 
pointed out to an anxious and listening world the 
fact that this war was a war of aggression by the 
Central Powers that undertook it. There were con- 
ditions under which Italy was in alliance with those 
Powers, but they were not conditions which bound 
it to a war of aggression on a feeble people, and 
when the Government of Austria-Hungary took its 
aggressive steps towards Serbia and called upon Italy 
to follow, the Government of Italy wrote its name 
high in history, in indelible letters, when it not only 
refused to follow but denounced that act as an aggres- 
sion in the face of the world. 

That, gentlemen, is Italy's crowning service to our 
generation, if she had never sent a soldier to the 
front and had never won a battle. She penetrated 
the moral and intellectual disguise under which this 

[II] 



THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

contest was forced upon the world. When she called 
us all to witness, we opened our eyes and saw. 

And now, thank God, we are side by side with 
Italy and France and Great Britain and Russia and 
Japan and the rest, in this stupendous undertaking. 
Gentlemen, the chief obstacle to its success is our 
self-confident optimism that the war is already won. 
Do not mistake: those of you who heard this after- 
noon the convincing and eloquent demonstrations by 
Signor Arlotta and Senator Marconi, those of you 
who listened to those demonstrations, know that this 
contest is not won and will not be won until Amer- 
ica puts every bit of its strength and fibre into it. 

It will not do, gentlemen, to saunter into war; it 
will not do to talk about war; it will not do to pass 
resolutions about war. A stupendous contest is on 
and the fate of the principles upon which this nation 
rests, is at stake. We have started, with Italy and 
France and Great Britain, on a quest like that of 
Jason of old in his search for the golden fleece. We 
have started to win a war for a new world. The old 
world, the world of 1914, the world at home, the 
world abroad, the world in its domestic conditions, 
the world in its international relations, that world has 
gone forever. We have started out in quest of a new 
world, and this war is at bottom a contest as to 
whether that new world is to be a place in which 
men shall live in freedom rather than in fear, in 
peace rather than in perpetual dread of war; whether 
it is to be a world of opportunity or a world of des- 
potism; whether it is to be a world in which every 
individual is called upon to give his best that he may 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

be his best, or a world in which every individual 
shall take the place that is assigned him by a higher 
power to do another's will, and subject to no appeal. 
We are searching for a new world. As Governor 
Hughes said so finely this afternoon, it is a new world 
in the very sense in which those navigators of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries set out upon their 
voyages. 

This world is near at hand, or else it does not exist 
at all. Either this new world is where we can go out 
and find it, and by our resourcefulness and our courage 
and our skill can create it, or else this new world is in 
the distant clouds and is a thing of dreams. If, gentle- 
men, this new world of peace and happiness and pros- 
perity and opportunity and freedom — if this new world 
of which we are in search — is a dream, then the greater 
portion of the human race is dreaming. If that is a 
hopeless vision, then the greater portion of the human 
race is absorbed in contemplating the unpractical, 
because, as if sundered by a knife, mankind finds it- 
itself in two great camps, professing two opposing 
faiths, pursuing two opposite ideals, hopelessly in 
contradiction, not to be compromised, and one to be 
victorious by force. Never in all history has just 
such an issue been presented to men before, and that 
issue presented to Italy, to France, to Great Britain, 
to America, awaits decision at the hands of our 
capacity and of our courage. 

There are very few American schoolboys who have 
not at one time or another written an essay or de- 
livered an oration on the topic 'Beyond the Alps lies 
Italy'. Every schoolhouse in the land has held up 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

the Alps as the great obstacle to endeavor, and Italy 
as the rich, happy, and fortunate reward of conquest. 
Hannibal carried his troops from Africa across the 
Alps to reduce ancient Rome; Caesar sent his legions 
across the Alps to the conquest of Gaul and Britain; 
Napoleon led his troops across the Alps, building 
roads which are a model of engineering construction 
at this moment; and now Cadorna, at the head of the 
Italian hosts, is seated on the very summit of the 
Alps surrounded by his heroic troops armed with the 
heaviest ordnance known to modern warfare, where 
Hannibal and Caesar and Napoleon were glad to go by 
the lowest passes. It is the most astounding achieve- 
ment in the whole history of war, this Italian 
army hurling itself at miles of Alpine peaks, every 
fastness held by a skilled and well-armed enemy, in 
order to assist your enterprise and mine, in order to 
make Italy free, united, independent, and safe. 

We know, gentlemen, we all of us know the 
splendid story; we know, and our city bears the 
marks of our knowledge, of Mazzini, the prophet and 
the seer; of Cavour, the master builder; of Garibaldi, 
the citizen soldier; and of the calm, penetrating judg- 
ment of Victor Emmanuel, first ruler of free, united, 
and independent Italy. 

What Italy struggled for in her internal develop- 
ment for two generations, she is struggling for at this 
moment for all mankind. She has gained for herself 
the aim which she sought, and now, with calm seren- 
ity, with sincere conviction, with generous sacrifice, 
she adds her power, her hosts, her traditions, and her 
ideals to this great contest over human principle. 

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THE ROYAL ITALIAN WAR COMMISSION 

And do you say that we cannot find a new world? 
Do you say that the obstacles are too great; that 
human greed and human selfishness and human de- 
sire for power, and all the long list of other human 
failings, are so many and so great, that our new 
world, for which we profess to be fighting, must re- 
main a land of dreams; that it is beyond the reach 
of the practical in life, and that no armies, no vic- 
tories, no conquests, no arguments, can ever reach it? 
If that be your question, you are pointing to the 
Alps. In answer I say to you. Beyond those Alps 
lies Italy. 

IV 

The address delivered at the Stadium of the College 
of the City of New York on the occasion of the 
assembly of the Italian Societies, June 2:^,, 191 7, was 
not reported. 



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